Over the past seven years this online apologetics and discernment ministry (OADM) here at Apprising Ministries has been among those warning you of the grave dangers involved with the corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) as perpetrated by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster.

From years of researching CSM and Foster himself, I can tell you that he and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard used the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church as their vehicle to drive their spurious CSM deep into the younger sectors of evangelicalism under the guise of so-called Spiritual Formation.

For example, I discussed this back in 2008 with my AM piece Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism As Methodology For Spiritual Formation. It’s an incontrovertible fact that this CSM of Foster-Willardism is merely their updated version of the Counter Reformation spirituality of Roman Catholic mystics.

What’s not being grasped by too many today in the evangelical community is that the Protestant Reformers raised up by God specifically rejected this foolishness; and instead, called God’s people back to seeking the Lord through His prescribed means of grace, and the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura.

Unfortunately, this lust for personal revelation outside of Scripture has given rise to a rebirth of Pietism; it’s also emboldened those who are involved with the excesses of the charismatic renewal to be more out front with their more questionable practices and claims as to what they “feel” God has spoken to them personally.

A good example is how even those considered to be conservative evangelicals are now regaling us with their personal chats with God. Recently here at AM I’ve shown you where Kay Arthur Tells Charles Stanley About When God Spoke To Her and Southern Baptist Charles Stanley On His Personal Chats With God.

Then through the charismatic John Piper we have the resurgence of Purpose Drivenism with Rick Warren; himself a charismatic quasi-contemplative who regularly tells us what God has supposedly told him. Apparently the Lord has even given Warren the authority to declare the Protestant Reformation to be in error.

For, in contradistinction to Protestant Reformers like Martin Luther, Warren has decreed that, “I see absolutely zero reason in separating my fellowship from anybody.” ((http://bit.ly/vETcpu, accessed 12/20/12.)) The PDL pope also added this bull:

“It really doesn’t matter what your label is. If you love Jesus, we’re on the same team,… Now I don’t agree with everything in everybody’s denomination, including my own. I don’t agree with everything that Catholics do or Pentecostals do, but what binds us together is so much stronger than what divides us,”

“I really do feel that these people are brothers and sisters in God’s family. I am looking to build bridges with the Orthodox Church, looking to build bridges with the Catholic Church,… (source)

We also have Billy Graham, arguably the SBC’s most famous evangelist, who involved Roman Catholic officials and their churches in his crusades as far back as 1957. ((http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/may/13.34.html, accessed 12-20-12.)) There’s also the late SBC statesman Chuck Colson who writes:

The greatest evangelist of this century—perhaps the greatest since Paul—is Billy Graham,… What accounts for his astonishing influence? Like Patrick and Finney and others, it is the anointing of the Holy Spirit…

Graham has been equally unswerving in his commitment to the church, both to the unity of the whole body (he’s taken plenty of criticism, but invariably includes all traditions on the platforms of his crucades) and to the local confessing congregations. ((Charles Colson, Ellen Vaughn, The Body [Dallas: Word, 1992], 332, 333, emphasis mine.))

It’s clear that Colson includes the Roman Catholic Church as one of those “traditions,” supposedly in the Body of Christ, when he says:

Personally, while I’ve developed strong doctrinal convictions, I’ve been enriched deeply by my fellowship with those who hold different, but equally strong doctrinal convictions—particularly my Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and Lutheran brothers and sisters. ((Ibid., 106, emphasis mine.))

Finally, here’s über-popular Southern Baptist quasi-elder Beth Moore who wants us to believe that God gave her a vision that afforded her the ability in a “particular dimension” to see the Body of Christ “as Jesus sees it.” And what is more apparently the Protestant Reformation was either a mistake or, at the very least, is now over.

You see, seems God showed Moore that now “Jesus” includes the apostate Roman Catholic Church among His Christian denominations:

From this vantage point on the battlefield for the mainstream evangelical Christian community we can see there’s a growing problem in the Southern Baptist Convention, reputed to be the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Some of its most visible representatives are not actually Protestant.

I point you now to Christ, the Reformers, and Sola Scriptura and the refreshing truth from Dr. Steven J. Lawson:

Part 1

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Part 2

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HT: Fighting For The Faith and Intelmin Apologetics

Further reading

• THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH HASN’T CHANGED ITS CONDEMNATION OF THE GOSPEL
• HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF JUSTIFICATION
• THINK YOU’RE A ROMAN CATHOLIC IF YOU DISAGREE WITH THE POPE; BETTER THINK AGAIN